CHARGED-UP RESULTS

Photos by Elisa Broche @eyesofeg When I first met Sydney, she was tucked into her own little world: a beanie pulled low, a hood covering her head, slouched in a classroom chair. She looked more like a construction worker surviving winter than a college student. We weren’t close then; we just happened to take the same class. Then life twisted, as it often does. Suddenly, I wasn’t just sitting near Sydney in class; I was living with her. A stranger turned roommate, with the oddities and rules that come with learning who someone really is behind closed doors. Sydney was messy in ways I didn’t understand, but oddly strict about other things. She was careful and cautious. I secretly nicknamed her “Safety Kid.” I wasn’t sure what to make of her at first. There’s a moment in every young adult’s life when something inside just ... snaps. The ground beneath you shakes. The identity you thought you had slips away. Suddenly, the clothes you wear feel like what defines you, your nest feels far away and every day feels long and heavy. For me, that moment came far from home. In that unfamiliar world, it was Sydney who quietly helped build a bridge back to myself. It started with something small. In passing, I mentioned how McDonald’s fries were my comfort food on bad days. Most people would have nodded, maybe laughed and moved on.  Not Sydney.  She remembered. From then on, she never let me fight a bad day without fries. That tiny act of care became a ritual. Sydney became more than just a roommate. She became a pillar, someone so solid that when my world felt fragile, I could lean on her without fear of breaking her too. She even traveled all the way to Honduras to meet my family—a world away from hers. She loved it. Strong friendships don’t come around often. They sneak up on you, dressed in beanies and hoodies, carrying fries on the hardest days. They aren’t perfect. Believe me, I could write a long list of things that drive me crazy about Sydney. But here’s the twist: the very things that sometimes annoy me are also the reasons I love her most. Friends and family are two words that start with the same letter, but if you look close enough, they begin to blur together. Family is the nest we’re born into. Friends are the nest we choose, or maybe the ones who choose us. In high school, I had friends I swore I’d never lose. We promised forever, the kind that lives in yearbooks and late-night texts. Today, I don’t talk to most of them. Life has a way of scattering people, teaching you that not all "forever's" are meant to last. But how do you walk away from someone who sat beside you in a hospital room? From someone who held your hand in the moments when words couldn’t reach? From someone who taught you the traditions of their country when you felt far from your own, or who showed you what it means to belong when your definition of home was blurry? You don’t. Or maybe you can’t. Friendship, I’ve learned, is unpredictable. Some people appear in our lives like cameos—they play their role, leave their mark and move on. That’s OK. They were meant for a season, for a lesson, for a moment. Every so often, you meet a person who doesn’t just pass through. They change the whole plot. Woven into your story in ways that can’t be undone. Sydney is that person for me. We all need a Sydney. Maybe that’s not their name. Maybe it’s the roommate who always left coffee waiting for you, the teammate who carried you through finals, or the friend who answered the phone at 2 a.m. without asking why. These friendships are rare, but when they show up, they remind us that life isn’t meant to be carried alone. In a world where we scroll past faces more than we sit across from them. A world where “best friend” is sometimes reduced to a title under a profile picture, it’s worth remembering what real friendship feels like. It’s not just the laughter or the adventures. It’s the fries on the worst day. The hospital chair pulled up beside yours. The willingness to travel across borders just to meet the people who made you. That’s what Sydney gave me. I hope this story reminds you that sometimes the people we barely notice at first—the ones hidden under hoodies and beanies—end up becoming the most important chapters of our lives.

Mural above APNH check-in desk. Credit - Patch Bowen, Horseshoe Magazine 2025 Early into Hartford Healthcare’s partnership with the University of New Haven, pediatric gender services and programs were terminated. Since July, medication management for youth under 19 has ended, as well as counseling programs and access to gender affirming surgeries and treatments. (See last edition of Horseshoe Magazine, Fall 2025, for context on this issue.) Students at University of New Haven must still beat steep obstacles to receive gender affirming care. These pediatric services are needed for students living with gender dysphoria to feel wholly themselves. As the federal government worsens transgender erasure nationwide, reliable access to these services have become life- saving . How are the local West Haven & New Haven communities staying alive? Nonprofits like A Place to Nourish your Health ask these hard questions, as the Center for Disease Control winds back progress in medical inclusivity. “So funding remains a tenuous- an unpredictable, funding remains an unpredictable force,” said Melanie DeFillipo, preventative care services manager for APNH. “We have got two sources of funding. We have the state prevention grant…, which is funded by the state of Connecticut through the CDC. And we also have a separate grant that is direct funded from the CDC.” Recently, the Department of Education’s office for civil rights sent communications to universities, including UNewHaven, about removing DEI programming. The Center for Disease Control released the same letter to recipients of federal grant funding. As soon as executive orders regarding diversity and inclusion were signed in January 2025, the CDC sent email notices to nonprofit grant recipients like APNH to remove all references to atypical genders or sexualities from patient documentation.  A shocking exclusion was the intersex population, who in recent years have been advocated fiercely for by activists and pediatricians alike. Backslides in nonbinary inclusion are evident with this administration. “The way that the template for 2025 looks is the gender identity question is completely stricken,” said DeFillipo, over a copy of patient onboarding forms she provided directly from the CDC. “It doesn't even say ‘client assigned at birth’, it just says ‘client sex’; and it says ‘male’, ‘female’. There's no option to decline there.” Without a strong body of data to be studied on the STI/STD transmission trends within various transgender and nonbinary populations, DeFillipo explains, no path for prevention is possible. Their dedication to their role is their own personal oath to protect patients from paper genocide. APNH staff are determined alongside them to maintain these prevention programs. “To take kind of the will of the government and still do important work” said DeFilipo, “and, you know, to make sure that their needs are taken care of and that they're not being pushed out of services.”

Before Reading, Transgender youth shed suffocating layers of secrecy on campus grounds. College, for many, is a recess from the fear of being caught. Far away are habits of hiding halter tops, filling shoeboxes with makeup or tucking away binders alongside football gear. Whether home is miles or minutes away, transgender undergraduates move mountains to become themselves for a single semester. For the fortunate few, our educational institutions provide hormones, counseling, clean needles and bias-free clinicians. If medicine isn’t a human right, surely it is an undoubtable privilege. Accessible gender affirming care is a lifeline. Our transgender youth are now presented with grave choices: perseverance or suicide. The Largest Hospitals In Connecticut Are Cutting Transgender Services. Permanently. Yale New Haven Hospital and Hartford HealthCare ended their gender affirming care services in late July. Uncertain are figures to how many clients were affected. “After a thorough assessment of the current environment," said Mark Dantonio, media coordinator for YNHH, "we made the very difficult decision to modify the pediatric gender program to eliminate the medication treatment component of the gender-affirming program.” “This decision was not made lightly. We are aware of the profound impact that this decision will have on the patients treated in this program, as well as their families.” Search ynhh.org  for ‘pediatric gender services’ and the non-discrimination policy is all that remains. Any information on the former pediatric services exist outside public view. YNHH and HHC are the largest service providers for hospital care statewide, operating three out of five of the most trafficked inpatient facilities. Transgender youth attending University of New Haven are hit hard by these changes. Where last spring students had multiple local options for counseling and guidance on transitioning, now the resources are wearing thin. The newly adopted partnerships between UNewHaven and Hartford Healthcare leave more uncertainty to boot. “That is the market difference between, like, living in a blue state versus a red state,” said Dr. Melanie Walsh, PH.D in Counselor Education and clinical fieldwork coordinator, “where we can't just confidently say, I can send my trans student to CAPS at Mississippi State University and know that they will be safe and cared for in a manner that's equitable, you know, all of those things.” As recently as 2020, Dr. Walsh published a content analysis in the Journal of LGBTQ Issues in Counseling . Her collaborative study ‘Rethinking counseling recruitment and outreach for transgender clients’  finds a gap in reports on transgender, nonbinary and gender nonconforming clientele, and Walsh meditates on reasons why. “My argument in that article was that we do need to be making a more concerted effort to recruit and do community outreach in a way that is not dissimilar to what we do with research participants in letting these communities know that, like, we're here, we're affirming, we're knowledgeable, etcetera” (sic). “We have that understanding with other minoritized populations or marginalized populations, but that type of understanding had not at least been written about before that article was published.” Hormones like estrogen and testosterone are schedule III drugs (et. United States Drug Enforcement Agency or DEA), and are difficult to source without the guidance of licensed psychiatrists. “We know that this happens all the time and people do it safely, but there's also a lot of risk involved with that. Like, are you getting clean-clean hormones, for example? That's my first question.” Dr. W said. “Are there gonna be fillers, etcetera? Do you know how to administer the drug properly or in a way that's going to be effective?..” “I think who it's hurting most, you know, are going to be our youth because… you're very unlikely to have a parent who's gonna sign off on let's get access hormones from the black market.” Many public and private institutions are appeasing the federal government by cutting short-lived DEI (Diversity Equity & Inclusion)  programs. These services aimed to support women, queer individuals and those with disabilities. Is a legal justification weighed the same as a moral one? “In Connecticut, we don’t inject politics into private family medical decisions, and we don’t let adults bully our kids. It’s that simple.” Attorney General William Tong is involved with multiple active lawsuits against the Trump administration over protections for LGBTQIA+ youth and adults. “In Connecticut, we don’t inject politics into private family medical decisions, and we don’t let adults bully our kids. It’s that simple,” Tong said to press when discussing the amicus brief for PFLAG v. Trump  (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). Tong, Governor Ned Lamont and Democratic Senator Ceci Maher have expressed their continued support for transgender individuals. The state of Connecticut is among 18 others  fighting these federal decisions in court. YNHH and HHC are in a better place with their budgets than many other hospitals nationwide. How much pressure is Yale facing from the Trump administration to drop gender reaffirming care? Was this decision forced or voluntary? The answer may lay in the massive national cuts to medicaid. The OHS (Office of Health Strategy)  says out of the 27 hospitals in Connecticut, YNHH and HHC operate 20 (74%) . From YNHH’s 2023 annual report, their system served outpatients upwards of 3.6 million. Looking at HHC’s report in the year prior, on emergency and patient services alone, their hospitals serviced 300,000 visitors combined. Numbers from this HHC report about patient billing also shows medicaid is covering above half, give or take some change, of the costs to care. HHC and YNHH might be pinching pennies as patients who cannot afford copays decide against treatment or travel out of state.  As a welcome introduction to Horseshoe Magazine’s investigative journalism, we’ll be charting the waves formed by removing gender affirming care from public institutions, the ripples felt by lgbtq+ students, as well as finding answers to burning questions from New Haven’s shaken community. Follow us here for more, and stay up to date on new editions of the Horseshoe Magazine & Charger Bulletin News.

For years there has been ongoing commentary that concerts have become a sea of phones,with audiences watching live performances through their screens. It is undeniable that smartphones have become a go-to for preserving moments and capturing snapshots of our lives. One example of this is filming concerts in their entirety. I was a firm believer that there was nothing wrong with recording, and that concerts were meant to be remembered in full.  The problem with my opinion was that I was 10-years-old when I attended my last concert. That changed on July 21, when I saw the band Ghost in person. The concert, however, was disclosed as a phoneless experience.  The announcement from the band's official ticket sale website sparked strong opinions on both sides. TikTok user @diixamond raised a valid critique under a post discussing the news, “I’m not spending all this money in this economy to see someone live and I can’t at least take home one memory.”  Average midsection seats range from $120 to $300 per ticket. When I purchased my tickets, I chose the nosebleed section, the highest and furthest area away from the stage. Nosebleed seats at TD Garden were about $80 each through Ticketmaster. For two tickets, the total was a little over $160 with tax and online fees. The cost of attending a concert only increases when you factor in the average overnight price of a hotel, Amtrak travel prices and the potential purchase merchandise.  Photo by: Abigail Riggins There is no doubt that concerts are no longer as easily affordable and accessible as they used to be. The frustration of being unable to document the event you spend so much money on is an understandable grievance.  Safety concerns have also filled social media in the wake of the band’s decision. There is always a risk for potential injury in large crowds. From the 2017 Ariana Grande concert attack in Manchester to the 2021 tragedy at the Astroworld Festival in the United States, there is a valid concern about concertgoers not having access to their devices in emergencies.  At my first concert without my parents, I had the same concerns as I queued in line to get my phone locked in a Yondr pouch.  A Yondr pouch is a small cloth pocket that you place your phone into that magnetically locks. To unlock the pouch, you must leave the venue and find an unlocking station to retrieve your phone. The pouch must be locked again before you can re-enter the concert.  The moment I couldn’t access my phone, I felt uneasy. However, there was not one area of the venue without at least four security guards stationed to help concertgoers find their seats and access exits. The event had one of the calmest and most controlled crowds I have experienced. TD Garden took necessary precautions such as metal detection, banning large bags and keeping the crowd in orderly lines. I had never felt safer in such a populated area.  The undeniable care and thorough planning on the venue’s part eased and put to rest the common fears many people had when confronted with the phone ban.  In the midst of this debate, I find myself seeing only the positives of a phoneless concert. While I can’t remember every detail of the concert, one thing I do remember is how connected everyone seemed to be. Hours before the venue doors opened, the streets were filled with fans interacting with one another. All that could be heard were people complimenting each other's hair, outfits, makeup and costumes. Strangers bonded over their excitement and love for Ghost’s music. While I was too shy to join in, others spent their time taking photos with one another and trading pins and bracelets. The knowledge of a phoneless concert inspired fans to make memories in different ways–by connecting with one another.  I can admit, as we waited for Ghost to get on stage, I was bored and itching to open my phone. Instead, my sister and I quickly took to people watching as I talked her ear off about the band’s lore and set list choice.  What was truly mesmerizing was when the music revved up and the band walked out on stage. There was no sea of lit screens disturbing the mood lighting. It was intense as everyone's eyes adjusted to the darkness and not one person lifted a phone above their head, blocking the view of the row behind them. Nearly 14,000 people’s eyes were glued to the stage, rather than their cameras making sure they filmed every perfect angle.  The crowd's response to the lead singer was even louder. So focused on what's in front of them, the audience’s participation during call and response moments was both intense and magical at the same time.  Tobias Forge, the lead singer, stated multiple times during interviews and social media posts that his choice of phoneless concerts makes him feel more connected to the audience. It’s clear that it must be an easier time performing to a captivated audience rather than singing to screens.  While I would have loved a video of my favorite song performed live for a memory keepsake (I refused to take out a loan for concert merchandise), I am grateful that I was forced to experience it with zero distraction. Through all the discourse about the phone ban during the concert tour, I think the lack of phones made the experience all the more memorable. Living “Rite Here Rite Now”–you’re welcome Ghost fans–made this truly a special occasion.

As much as I hate driving, my car is one of the most comforting places to me. I get to be alone, but I’m never lonely. When I’m alone in my car, the world melts away. My brain turns off and I become one with the music. I crank the volume up and escape from my life as I enter a moving concert. I get to choose the set list. For however long I’m in the car, I am granted an excuse to detach from my own reality and step into a more ideal one. The most dire thing in that moment is making sure the music I play serves that purpose. My stereo settings let me turn the bass up to the point where my car visibly shakes. The feeling is so similar to the seismic waves of a stadium during a concert. I let that feeling swallow me whole.  The expectations that people have for me no longer exist. The way that people feel about me does not matter. I simply enjoy the company of my speakers and act the way I wish I could at any given moment. It’s the way I truly am, but am too afraid to show to others. I can laugh. I can cry. I can belt along to a ballad as loud as I want. I am never too much. When I’m alone in my car, I can be myself . While there are times that I need a break from my life, my car provides me a place where I’m allowed to let my feelings out. As soon as I shut my door and turn on the ignition, I get to release every emotion that I’ve kept bottled up inside me. I’m not looking for someone to console me. The music is enough. There is nothing more therapeutic than going 50 mph down a country road while blaring a song about feeling misunderstood. “Too Strange For the Circus” by Debbii Dawson plays at a volume that’s harmful to the ears and blocks out any noise coming from outside. The tears can fall freely without feeling like my emotions are a burden to someone else. I can think about myself. I am allowed to take up space without needing a ticket. From my car, I can grasp that feeling of understanding that only exists when I’m watching someone spill their guts out on a stage. My car doesn’t judge me if I am too loud. My car doesn’t care how many times I play the same song in one ride. My car doesn’t tell me to calm down while I am bawling my eyes out after being criticized at work. My car doesn’t make me feel like I have to hide myself. I do understand that while my car may feel like a protective bubble, people can still see me. Even though my car is like a fishbowl, I barely think about how others on the road might perceive me. They might be doing the same exact things in their car, but the tinted windows just make it harder to see them. It’s in that scenario that I can see that other people are just like me. Everyone has their own way to decompress. Other people have the same thoughts running through their heads. However, I am unable to apply that logic to everything. I don’t know why I feel so protected from judgment when I’m in my car. I wish life was like a math equation, where I could use the same formula for every similar scenario. I want to go to a doctor's appointment as if I’m alone in my car. I want to walk around campus as if I’m alone in my car. I want to wander around a store by myself as if I’m alone in my car. I am so tired of feeling like I am not allowed to be somewhere just because it’s only me. I don’t plan out everything that I have to say in a conversation when I’m alone in my car. I don’t try to filter out things that might offend people when I’m alone in my car. I think people would like me if they saw what I’m like when I’m in my car. They wouldn’t just see a person who watches everyone around them and never speaks. I allow myself to be who I am, but only in secret. I guess I’m uncomfortable with who I am when I’m around other people. Why can’t I just be alone in my car all the time? Image by Adonyi Gábor on Pexels

It’s 2:03 a.m. My window is cracked open, and the longer I stay up, the more I lose precious sleep time. Still, my thoughts keep me awake. You know those nights when a random thought engulfs your mind and you can’t get it out of your head until you’ve pondered it? Tonight, for me, it’s the Library of Alexandria. If you know me, you know how much I love "what ifs" in human history, and this one is no different. I don’t remember exactly how I got here. Maybe it was a quote on social media, or more likely a TikTok that showed up on my For You page while I was doomscrolling. But once the thought landed, it stuck in my mind: What if the Library of Alexandria had never burned down? If you’ve never heard about it, or only vaguely remember it from a history class, here’s a short version: The Library of Alexandria was founded in Egypt during the third century B.C. It wasn’t just a place to store books; it was a temple to human history. Imagine a world where scholars from Greece, Egypt, India and beyond came together to study, debate and share what they knew. There were astronomers, mathematicians, poets, scientists and translators. It was a diverse and perfect culmination of human knowledge—something modern-day historians could only dream of experiencing. It’s estimated the library may have held 400,000 to 700,000 scrolls—not books, but scrolls—written by hand. Ideas that someone sat with, shaped and sealed in ink. Knowledge passed down across time and cultures, brought into one space to be preserved, understood and added to. Then it all went up in smoke. There’s debate about how it was destroyed. Julius Caesar might have accidentally set it ablaze during a military campaign. Others say it was gradually dismantled over time through neglect, political shifts and religious uprisings. No single villain, no dramatic cinematic moment—just centuries of apathy and missed chances. In a way, that makes it worse. Because it wasn’t just a building that burned. It was a buildup of many small problems that caused it to be lost to time. What were we on the verge of discovering? Could we have advanced medicine by hundreds of years? Could we have avoided wars with a deeper understanding of each other’s cultures and philosophies? Would North America have been discovered earlier? Who would have colonized what is now the United States first? Could we have developed technologies that still feel like science fiction today? It keeps me up (on nights like this) to think we might have known the Earth revolved around the sun centuries earlier, or had a working theory of atoms, the nervous system—even flying machines. These weren’t science fiction fantasies. There’s evidence some of this knowledge existed , or was close to existing, in those scrolls. And yet, here we are—picking up the pieces generations later. Starting from scratch on ideas that may have once already lived, breathed and died in those scrolls. Gone, because we didn’t protect them. What I can’t shake is that we’re still losing knowledge—not to flames, but to neglect. We’re surrounded by information, yet somehow more disconnected from understanding. There’s access, but not always intention. Truth competes with noise. We underfund the places meant to preserve learning and dismiss the voices that push us to think deeper. It’s not as dramatic as a fire, but the effect feels the same—we let valuable knowledge slip away. Quietly. Constantly. And yeah, I know—I’m just one person staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night. I’m not trying to solve the world’s knowledge crisis with a single thought. But it makes me wonder: What if we treated learning as sacred? What if we approached every conversation, every story, every piece of information with the kind of reverence the ancient scholars once did? The Library of Alexandria might be gone. But the idea of it—the dream behind it—doesn’t have to be. Maybe it’s in every open book, every thoughtful question, every time someone chooses curiosity over certainty. Maybe it lives again every time we choose to preserve knowledge, share it and protect it—not just for ourselves, but for the next generation. At 2 a.m., when the world feels heavy and the past feels painfully close, I think about what we lost in the fire. But I also think about what we still have the power to protect. Because knowledge, once lost, is hard to recover. But knowledge shared? That’s how you rebuild a library.

Hi, I’m Elisa, and for the past two semesters I’ve had the honor of serving as the editor of Horseshoe Magazine . Sadly, this is my last semester. I graduate soon, and before I walk away from this campus with a little more wisdom, I want to leave something behind. For those who don’t know me, I’m an international student from Honduras. That label—international s tudent —has been my identity for the past four years I’ve lived in the United States. Being international is a mix of pride, frustration and comedy. Pride because we’re brave enough to build a life away from home. Frustration because regulations and immigration policies can make you feel like you’re playing a game where the rules change mid-match. And comedy—well, because nothing makes you feel more "other" than being the only person in the room who doesn’t get the pop culture reference since you watched all the movies dubbed in Spanish growing up. (Yes, I still think "Shrek" sounds better en español.) If I wanted to, I could complain for hours about what it means to survive here—about visas, work limitations or having less than anyone else. I could tell you about crying in Walmart because you saw the one brand of cookies you used to eat back home, or about learning how to cook your national dishes with substitute ingredients that never taste quite the same. But instead, I want this to be a guide, a memoir and perhaps a word of advice for those who come after me—or for those who are already here, far from home, missing their family, their food or even just the sun on their skin. Because here’s the truth: My experience here changed my life. If I were to meet the Elisa who got off the plane on Jan. 13, 2022, she wouldn’t recognize me now. Who I am, what I believe in, how I see the world—it’s all been transformed. So if you’re a freshman stepping off that plane, suitcase in one hand and dreams in the other, welcome. From now on, in this column, I’ll call you Global Chargers. That’s what you are—students from every corner of the planet, carrying not just textbooks but also traditions, memories and hopes across borders. Global Chargers, this will be the best and the hardest time of your life. If you’re stubborn enough to stick through it, you’ll discover joy in the most unlikely places. Yes, you’ll cry because, “After this exam I can’t just go home and hug my mom.” You’ll sit in the dining hall wishing desperately for huevitos con frijoles  or whatever comfort food raised you. But you’ll also laugh in ways you never expected. You’ll build a family out of friends, and you’ll learn that your spirit is bigger than this campus, bigger than Connecticut and bigger than every obstacle thrown at you. Global Chargers often feel like we need to be twice as strong to prove we deserve to be here. Asking for help doesn’t mean weakness—it means you’re human. Whether it’s the international office, professors or friends, don’t carry everything alone. Home is far away, school is stressful, but you need that third place: the cafe where the barista remembers your name, the corner of the library where you always sit or the soccer field where you forget about everything else. Claim a space that belongs to you. Remember why you came. When things get hard—and they will—hold on to your “why.” Maybe it’s for your family, for your career, for the version of yourself you’re still becoming. That “why” will pull you through homesickness, bureaucracy and long winters. Being a Global Charger isn’t easy. It’s walking through life with a backpack that carries not just your laptop but your culture, your fears, your visa status and your dreams. It’s also proof of your strength. To those still here, still navigating, still finding their place: I hope this column can be your place of information, comfort or even confirmation that you are not alone. This campus might feel overwhelming at times, but your spirit is bigger. Bigger because you made the brave choice to be here today, far from home but closer to the person you’re becoming. So here’s my goodbye for today (don’t get scared, you got me one more semester), not just as the editor of this magazine but as a fellow Global Charger. Wherever you are from, wherever you’re going next—keep thriving, keep being stubborn and keep celebrating every single moment. I’ll be around for one more semester, so feel free to email me if you’d like to chat. You’re not just studying abroad. You’re building a life worth remembering.

PHOTO TAKEN AND EDITED BY AZAM HOSTETLER At the southernmost point of the continental United States sits Key West, a town reached by a 100-mile bridge over a chain of islands. The city is famous for Ernest Hemingway's house and competitive seafood spots. With names like Hog's Breath Saloon and Old Town Tavern, places that appear to be restaurants are, in reality, bars that are hardly inviting for a family of four. This iguana lives in Mallory Square. She did not choose her name. Facing what should be the Gulf of Mexico and some dead coral reefs, this iguana couldn't care less about territory name changes or ocean acidification. Unbeknownst to the troubles of the world, all she knows are the rocks and the routine. Her name is Elaine. Every evening, she crawls out to bask under the sun, as cold-blooded creatures often do to regulate their body temperature. Other cold-blooded creatures include, but are not limited to, J.K. Rowling (regulating hate in her body) or, by no correlation, J.K. Simmons—wanting to throw a cymbal at Miles Teller's head. Just kidding. Yet Elaine doesn't know that she's named after Elaine Benes, a character from the TV sitcom "Seinfeld," and that part isn't a joke. Cosmo Kramer the iguana lurks about as well, an older male that shuffles in around sunset. He unfortunately wasn't available for a picture and declined to comment. The ice cream cart vendor named those two after characters from "Seinfeld," and in a sort of way she gave these iguanas a life beyond Key West's Mallory Square by doing so. Sure, this Elaine isn't Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the real actress from "Seinfeld." She's not dating Patrick Warburton in a '90s sitcom. Yeah, that's right. This Elaine is ready for the nightlife, yet we left Key West just as Mallory Square was about to get interesting. We couldn't help it. We had to drive two hours back to our overpriced condominium in some offshoot Florida Key with a name not even the Oxford dictionary could produce. It was a bit like going to see a play and leaving a third of the way in. I could say I've been to Key West, but spending five daylight hours there doesn't do it justice. I missed the street performers, jewelry and craft stands, live music and vendors. Elaine the iguana was there to witness it before she crawled back into whatever hole she lived in. She was like some sort of troll under a bridge. Instead of asking for a riddle (I could be mixing up the nursery rhymes), Elaine would just stare silently, as iguanas don't make noise—for instance, barking lizards don't exist. Lizards like these are silent, save for a cough or sneeze, and they certainly don't originate from fictional geneticists named Curt Connors written by Stan Lee. Why the ice cream cart vendor named the iguana Elaine, I still don't know. I had already snapped a photo of the green fool. In fact, I had never seen an iguana outside a cage this big, save the one time I went on a failed date to SeaQuest before PETA shut them down. The point is, the name gave the photos life and a story where there otherwise would just be a scaly green reptile. Even if I couldn't speak to Elaine, I could now imagine her personality. There even could've been a George Costanza or a Jerry Seinfeld if there were more lizards. Would their grandfather be Larry David, since he fathered "Seinfeld's" writing process? No use wondering. Our paths may never cross again, Elaine. Your life is confined to a paved square that's the epitome of nightlife as far south as you can go in the United States. I only experienced a couple dehydrated-looking tourists roasting alive under the unrelenting sun, and a couple sad food vendors setting up shop. I arrived too early to see the festivities, but just in time to meet a one-of-a-kind lizard. It's quite possible, upon further research, that these iguanas are invasive and I'm giving unfair attention to an animal species that's destroying Florida, but I'm sure Julia Louis-Dreyfus in "Seinfeld" would appreciate the shoutout. Our lives are so different, Elaine. We eat different food, see different sights and hear different things. Maybe I'll wish to have a life as simple as yours, without car taxes, homework or, you guessed it, drama in the friend group. If I could just live somewhere and bask in the sun, absorbing the solar energy instead of skin cancer, I think things might be all right. And she's probably envying me, and my bipedal walk and almost fully developed prefrontal cortex (five more years left by textbook, but I think I can make decisions well enough now). This is cliche, but perhaps we just think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. I know we'll never meet again, Elaine. Ten years from now, I'll flip through my haphazard Florida vacation photos and find your portrait, Elaine. Odds are I'll smile, remembering a sun-soaked lizard and a brief, shared moment at the edge of the country—a reminder of how unlikely characters can linger in memory long after the journey ends.

By: Haiden Leach Some foreground for this piece comes from the classrooms of the University of New Haven. I took an unexpected class for my senior year, but it was needed. I wanted to help share stories of those who are limited and whose voices are hidden. If you are interested in this course, here is a small description before you read on! Please enjoy. **Dr. Daria A. Kirjanov is a Practitioner in Residence at the University of New Haven. She teaches Russian language and interdisciplinary courses in the Division of Human Sciences and the University Writing Program. Her research focuses on Russophone literature and culture, diaspora studies,  and secondary language acquisition.   Description of the Course  RUSS 3304  “Stories of Displaced Lives: Russia and Eastern Europe in Exile” War, revolution, and repression have led to the displacement of millions of people since the turn of the 20th century.   “Stories of Displaced Lives: Russia and Eastern Europe in Exile” (RUSS 3304) is a multidisciplinary course that explores the many dimensions of how refugees and emigres approach displacement through storytelling.  Central topics in this course are political repression, cultural identity, resilience, trauma, and memory.  Course materials include films, documentaries, video testimonies, memoirs, prose fiction, music, and poetry written by or about individuals who have lived through some of the most significant upheavals in the 20th and 21st centuries. Students engage with the works of   Ukrainian, Russian, Soviet, Czech, Lithuanian, Polish, Jewish, Romany, Bosnian, and American writers and filmmakers. Attention will also be given to current refugee crises in other parts of the world. This course is conducted in English.** Different voices experience displacement in different ways, internally (psychologically) and externally (physically). Personal works of those affected will be told as they have witnessed events that will change the world.      We are seeing history play out, revealing the displacement of millions because of war crimes. Fear and screams echo through the air on what should have been a normal night in the world. While many slept or woke up to start their day, hell began to rain down as the wind was silent. War has now engulfed the people of Ukraine and Gaza. Both are sitting in different parts of the world but sharing the same terrible fate. Bombs rain down and drive people out of their homes, a journey no one wants. The world is suffering through the ages.    This semester, in the course “Displaced Lives”, we have read and watched many stories that show how challenging displacement is. Displacement doesn’t always mean a movement or a physical place from which one is separated. Displacement has different ways of showing itself; some displacement is internal, meaning psychological, and some is external, that is, physical.     The film, “Everything is Illuminated,” directed by Liev Schreiber, highlights the issues of internal displacement and how we are affected by it. Jonathan, played by Elijah Wood, embodies the feeling of internal displacement through religion and nationality. Throughout the film, his character feels disconnected from his family and (where they come from – “their origins”) because of the Holocaust.     When traveling to Ukraine, Jonathan is looking for anyone to point him in the direction of his family's legacy. He is searching for a man who spared and saved his grandfather, to thank him. His family's past is buried, and he now rolls in the feeling of not knowing where he comes from, like so many others of displacement. In the film, the third wall breaks for the audience to form opinions that the characters have not yet discovered. The grandfather, presented with his past, finds himself internally displaced in his everyday routines. Displacement is usually thought of as being physically removed; it can also mean being mentally removed, like how Jonathan and the grandfather of the film feel.      The people of Ukraine, for example, have been displaced because Russia seeks to take their land. Explosions rang in Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, hitting the city of Kyiv. Missiles would push through walls to begin the full-scale war between the two nations. With growing concern of military powers from Russia, Ukraine grows closer to the idea that they are in for the long haul. “There are currently more than 6.7 million refugees from Ukraine who have sought international protection – most of them in Europe, in addition to over 3.7 million people who remain forcibly displaced inside the country,” said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).    Sisters Nadiia Gryshyna and Svitlana Kartashova faced these tragedies. The pair was forced to flee as a safety threat grew imminent. Explosives intensified near their village of Velyka Rybytsia on the Psel River in northeastern Ukraine, just 5 kilometers from the Russian border. A daunting reality was in front of them, they would now be displaced from their only home.  Nadiia said, “Our village is too close to the front line: every day, we were bombed. The evacuation was very hard for us.” Many around Ukraine have suffered the same fate; there are an estimated 10.6 million Ukrainians who have been forced from their homes over the last three years, all facing the same fate as Nadia and her family. Up to thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have died, and as many as 800,000 Russian militants have perished. There has been destruction on both sides. Missiles not only kill soldiers but also civilians and destroy habitable land. Houses that were once homes are now shells of where families used to gather. Yet, despite so much suffering, the spirit of the Ukrainian people remains unchanged.     With so much sadness and destruction, the people of Ukraine remain hopeful they will return to the places they call home. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said, “Overall, 61 percent of Ukrainian refugees and 73 percent of internally displaced people surveyed still plan and hope to return home one day.”     Mariia Brusova  is one of the hopefuls... this is her second time being displaced from Ukraine. The first was in 2014, in another conflict with Russia. She’s hopeful, nonetheless, that she will return home a second time to Ukraine. People who don’t return must make a new normal. Nadiia, Svitlana, and their children are some of the people who have chosen to take this disaster and turn it into something beautiful.    “As a family, we have a chance to start over, after going through so much,” said Nadiia. The group relocated to a home made by UNCHR, which now houses all eight of them.   Svitlana said, “We love our new home- we can’t return [to our village] because our homes are destroyed, but now we have a place where we can rebuild our lives.” With a safe housing option becoming available for other displaced families, five families have also joined the area. A small village of families is forming in the rubble of despair. These excerpts only begin to highlight the cries of these displacement victims.     In the text, Snow and Sand , author Vicka Markov Surovtsov picks this idea apart even more. In this memoir, Vika takes us through snow and sand  to show us her journey of internal/ external displacement while being alive. Through displacement events, she writes about displacement and what it means to her, in three points of view. Her mother, father, and she all illuminated different perspectives of how tragedies affected them. Vikas ' mother suffered displacement throughout her entire life. By default, and as a product of her environment, it trickled down to Vika, too.    Starting in Russia and being physically displaced from her home, their family travels to Egypt for a new lease on life.     “For many years, the Turks were determined to cut out all the Armenians, and they had partially succeeded. At war, the Armenians systematically paid them back by killing the remaining few Turks. These were mostly women, children, and old people, too weak to leave town, but avenging Armenians would suffer too long at the hands of their tormentors. Had no pity,” said Surovtsov.    While undergoing the effects of physical displacement, internal displacement would become their new norm. Russian culture is very different from the practices and daily life in Egypt. New languages had to be adopted to survive in a land unfamiliar to them. Most now assume a new identity in a foreign culture or language. They must assume adaptation to their surroundings and ideals that lie ahead.    During displacement, many look to writing to keep them going; the most powerful works often come out in devastating events. Some of the best books come from displacement. Vika writes about her journey in three parts - from her mother’s point of view, her father’s, and herself when she returned to Russia after the occupation. Literature has a way of invoking feelings that images sometimes may not. We see this not only in Vikas’ book but in a poem, Requiem, by Anna Akhmatova.     Excerpt :   For seventeen months, I have been screaming,   Calling you home.   I've thrown myself at the feet of butchers   For you, my son, and my horror.   Everything has become muddled forever -   I can no longer distinguish   Who is an animal, who a person, and how long   The wait can be for an execution.   Akhmatova, p.2.     While some find comfort in words, others find it in hope. One thing that all displaced people share is the ability to hope. Most hope for a better future, or hope that history will stop repeating itself, or that we can be better than we once were. People of displacement have an immeasurable sense of character. They also embody what it means to love your country. Even though damage and destruction ravage their homes, their love for where they hold their memories triumphs overall.     A parallel text that influences thoughts about displacement is Man’s Search for Meaning  by Viktor Frankl, a memoir detailing   and exposing the realities of displacement through Frankl’s memories of the Holocaust.     Frankl writes, “I would like to mention a few similar surprises on how much we could endure: we were unable to clean our teeth, and yet, despite that and a severe vitamin deficiency, we had healthier gums than ever before. We had to wear the same shirts for half a year, until they had lost all appearance of being shirts. For days, we were unable to wash, even partially, because of frozen water-pipes, and yet the sores and abrasions on hands which were dirty from work in the soil did not suppurate (that is, unless there was frostbite),” stated Frankl. It draws eerie similarities to a time when Jewish prisoners were the victims of genocide during imprisonment camps and forced labor camps.   The holocaust defined a new way of how to be displaced on a wide scale that many had not seen. Viktor Frankl’s memoir, Man’s Search for Meaning, dives into the horrific truths of displacement. Not by the way of travelling to a different country, but travel to a different country to die based on your specific beliefs. People were ripped from their homes to be killed or worked to death. Displacement seems to always root itself in history, seemingly because it keeps happening.     History tends to repeat itself. While there is a war in Ukraine, there is a war in Gaza. A war doesn’t define the situations happening, but genocide does. Another key element of displacement is intended to end a specific movement from claiming their territory. In Gaza, a genocide of the Palestinian people is happening, but society is unchanged by the carnage.    Genocide is defined as “The deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group, per Merriam Webster.     Oxfam reports write, “The recent escalation in efforts by Israel to bombard, deprive and displace the Palestinian population of Gaza has resulted in Oxfam and partner organizations being severely restricted and struggling to provide support to civilians, who are facing starvation and relentless violence.”     While the world lies its head down at night, displacement in the most gruesome scenes is happening. Slaughters of children, women, and families rain down on the Palestinian people. While the people in Gaza fight for their lives, so do those in Ukraine. They are exiled from their homes and all they’ve ever known. Displacement internally and externally is all around us and continues to grow exponentially with the threats of nuclear weaponry.     These are the voices of the victims of displacement. From text, to film, or print, these stories are real, raw, and all around us. We cannot neglect the fact that these are their truths. What they have witnessed in history has changed the world. Displacement will never end, so neither can these stories.

Skulls of the victims. PC: Britannica Contributing Writer Azam Hostetler  Hate is a powerfully destructive tool. Covering up the nightmarish past is another. April 17, 1975. Tanks emerge on the streets of the capital city, Phnom Penh. Cambodia is about to come to the end of a brutal five-year civil war amid decades of political turmoil. The United States-backed Khmer Republic government had been defeated, and the U.S. Embassy and other officials had been evacuated just five days earlier. Yet about five decades ago, among the mass refugees and cheering crowds, their hopeful allure of peace was struck down. In just four years, at least 1.25 million — though it’s possible as many as 3 million — Cambodians perished from disease, starvation and mass murder. Civil and property rights were abolished, along with the expression or practice of religion. Society was to be remade in accordance with communist beliefs to create a “new Angkorian” empire. All evidence of Western and pre-revolutionary influence was eradicated. According to Britannica, anyone speaking different languages, holding jobs considered “intellectual,” or belonging to minority ethnic or religious groups was especially targeted. At the helm of the Khmer Rouge was leader and Prime Minister Pol Pot, who renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea and instituted the concept of Year Zero. All of Cambodia’s rich history was to be erased. The identities of the population were reset, and a form of Maoist communism aimed at building a classless society was implemented. According to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the ideology cast educated city dwellers and Western capitalist ideals as corrupt, promoting a regime ruled by and for the poorest peasants. The world’s attention was drawn to the humanitarian crisis by the 1984 film The Killing Fields.  Haing S. Ngor portrays a survivor, based on real-life journalist Dith Pran, who is forced to march out of deserted cities and work in forced labor on hopeless agricultural projects. Starving and severely beaten, his character treks through mud-filled trenches scattered with rotting skulls and skeletons, eats lizards to survive, and witnesses daily executions of those who disobey. These are only fragments of the horrors millions endured. The film also depicts the fall of the American Embassy through the eyes of a U.S. journalist, the devastation caused by American bombings during the civil war, and the growing political tensions that led to the 1975 takeover. Many Americans might not know where Cambodia is on a map or might conflate this tragedy with the Vietnam War. But the Cambodian genocide was a distinct catastrophe that warrants recognition — because it should have never happened. Radios, music, currency, hospitals and factories were banned or rendered obsolete. All children age 8 and older were separated from their parents, and formal education was abolished. The Khmer Rouge indoctrinated children to view the state as their true parent. According to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, children were seen as pliable and easily brainwashed. They were taught to obey and to believe that anyone who violated Pol Pot’s ideology — even for eating without permission — deserved execution. The Khmer Rouge was overthrown in 1979 by a Vietnamese invasion, which installed a puppet government. In the decades since the genocide, Cambodia has largely been ruled by the Cambodian People’s Party, which has justified its grip on power by invoking the trauma of the past. As reported by The Conversation, most of the population was born after 1979, and education on the genocide remains limited, resulting in a national knowledge gap. History has been manipulated, trauma repressed, and authoritarianism reframed as stability. Justice was delayed for decades, and many perpetrators of the genocide still walk free — some even hold government positions or live near survivors. Cambodia’s economy, heavily reliant on tourism and exports, has grown, but its intellectual class remains stunted due to the systemic destruction of human capital during the genocide. As The Conversation reports, intergenerational trauma persists, and discussions of the past are often neglected rather than embraced. The legacy of the genocide lingers in the institutions and in the system. So why does this matter now? It’s been 50 years. But historical amnesia — the failure to understand how the past informs the present and future — is dangerous. Those who forget history may be doomed to repeat it. Political extremism in any form is dangerous, especially when it leads to bloodshed. The hatred instilled in children, in Khmer Rouge soldiers, in Pol Pot, and in all who participated in the genocide, shows how powerful and destructive that four-letter word — hate — can be. Violence is never the answer, nor is silence about the past. The people of Cambodia deserve honest reflection, not suppression, forgetfulness or educational neglect. Many young people may not know their country’s history, yet they carry inherited trauma within their families. The killing fields — where victims were slaughtered with pickaxes because bullets were too costly, where children were trained to hate, where famine and disease ran rampant — must not be forgotten. We have a duty to remember these atrocities to prevent the next genocide. Across the globe, people have suffered and continue to suffer under extremism and oppression. And while many think, “It can’t happen here,” it can. Dith Pran, the real-life journalist portrayed by Ngor in The Killing Fields,  once said, “I don't consider myself a politician or a hero. I'm a messenger. If Cambodia is to survive, it needs many voices.” Many ears. Many eyes. Many voices. Looking back, 50 years later, at those tanks rolling into the cheering streets of Phnom Penh — tanks that brought not peace but devastation — we are left with a collective memory, and a collective responsibility, to never forget. Azam will be joining Horseshoe Magazine as editor for Photojournalism during the Fall 2025

Contributing Writer Gabriella Pinto Gabriella Pinto will be working as the Managing Editor for the Fall 2025 The definition of the word “family” is “the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children,” according to Merriam-Webster.   But families are complicated. What about half-siblings? And can you still call someone a member of your family even if you’re estranged? My half-brother taught me how to swim. He’d appear frequently in old photo albums, sitting beside me as I blew out the candles on my birthday cake. My half-sister and I had a tenser relationship. I once kicked her in the face while we were in the pool together. We had our issues, but I still had some great memories with her. Looking back, I could see pictures of us holding my cat Cookie when he was just a kitten. According to Ancestry.com , half-siblings only share 25% of their DNA. This is because 50% of their DNA comes from the shared parent. I didn’t care about the science. I always called them my brother and sister and never thought of them otherwise. But I haven’t seen either of them since I was 8 years old. Before I turned 8, they lived with their mother but still visited our father. After my eighth birthday, the visits became less frequent. Two years later, my mom and I moved in with her parents. She filed a restraining order against my father because of domestic violence. Contact with my half-siblings had fizzled out by then. My parents divorced and my mother got sole custody of me. Sometimes, I felt alone. While my mother was my best friend, I envied friends who had siblings with whom they could go to the movies or the store. Once, I remember watching my cousins fight. That was normal for them, but I got upset watching. One of my cousins looked at me and said, “Gabriella, you just don’t get it because you don’t have a sister.” I ran away and cried. I did  have a sister. Didn’t I? Did she even think of me as a sister anymore? And what about my brother? As I got older, I always kept the two of them in the back of my mind. This was partly because I felt lonely, but another part was that I wanted someone else to talk to about the trauma my father caused. In Psychology Today  , Ellen Hendriksen said, “Whether it’s validation, understanding, being seen, or empathy, talking with someone (or many someones) who gets it rids survivors of feelings of isolation.” I went to therapy during the divorce process, but I felt like I could have benefited more from talking to people who had similar experiences with people like my father. But I don’t even know if they would view their childhoods the same way. My half-siblings were only two years apart, and I was nine years younger than my half-brother and seven years younger than my half-sister. There are times where each sibling will have a different narrative and overall assessment  of their childhood. This is because they can have vastly different experiences and perspectives. This may be because of differences in treatment or having a big age difference. Maybe one of my half-siblings would acknowledge the abuse and the other might think it wasn’t as bad as I saw it. This is one reason I haven’t tried to contact them. I followed my half-brother on Instagram, which took courage, considering he blocked my mother. Once I saw that he didn’t block me, I thought I could try to talk to him. I sent him a message telling him how proud I was of him. He did end up responding, but it was a simple “thank you,” so I left it alone. I missed my chance of seeing them when my Nonna, our father’s mother, died. They held the funeral in state, but I was afraid to see them after more than a decade of no contact. I have no idea how they would have responded to me, or my mother. We decided to send flowers instead. I don’t think I could be close with someone who wants nothing to do with my mother. I look at her as the person who saved me, while I think my father’s side of the family blames her for the situation. I know I can’t say that for certain since I haven’t spoken to them, but that’s what it feels like. There’s a part of me that wonders how often my half-siblings think about me. Does my name ever come up in their conversations? Have they tried to look me up as I’ve done with them? I recently saw on my LinkedIn that someone with a name similar to my half-brother’s had viewed my profile. It even had the location of a town he used to work in. It was probably fake, but it still makes me wonder if I ever cross his mind. Even though I have these unresolved questions, it’s easier for me to just imagine what it would be like to have them in my life because then there’s no chance of being sabotaged by my own expectations. And I don’t want to ruin the perception I had of them when I was younger. Business Insider  says that people tend to think of siblings as “ready-made playmates and lifelong friends,” but that isn’t always the case. Just because “blood is thicker than water,” it doesn’t mean you have to force a relationship. They are adults now. I might scroll through my half-brother’s Instagram to feel somewhat closer to him, but I don’t know him anymore. I might hear my half-sister’s voice in the background of one of his videos, but it is no longer familiar to me. They are strangers now, and the only mention of my existence might be in old photographs, or in the lines of their obituaries when they pass away. Families are complicated. Maybe that’s just the way it has to be. Image by Wonita on Pixabay

Neil Diamond sets out on a journey across the U.S. to look at how Hollywood has portrayed Native Americans in movies. He talks with historians, actors, and indigenous people to understand how these portrayals have shaped public opinion. One key location he visits is Monument Valley, a site famously used in numerous Western films directed by John Ford. Here, Diamond reflects on how the landscape became synonymous with the "Hollywood Indian" stereotype, even though many Native American tribes depicted in these films were not from that region. The vast desert and towering rock formations served as a backdrop for countless cowboy-versus-Indian conflicts, reinforcing inaccurate and monolithic representations of Native people. Diamond also travels to Los Angeles, the heart of the film industry, where he interviews Native actors such as Adam Beach and Wes Studi. He learns more about how this actor struggled to separate from Native Americans, being classified as either savages or warriors. In this conversation, he learns more about Native American representation in Hollywood. One of the most striking moments for me was seeing Sacheen Littlefeather stand and give a speech at the Oscars, hearing both cheers and boos from the audience. It was genuinely astonishing to witness, and I deeply admired, her bravery in taking such a bold stand for Native American rights on such a grand stage. One of the places that called my attention the most was a camp of those "frat-looking boys" who painted their bodies, yelled, and kicked tables. To me, it is unclear what the purpose is for their actions. It was disrespectful. The scene highlighted the still ongoing issue of cultural appropriation and the difference in appreciation between indigenous traditions and how they are misrepresented or misused by non-Native groups. Throughout the documentary, several key takeaways emerge regarding the portrayal of Native American people in movies. The concept of the "noble savage" and the "savage warrior" has dominated Hollywood narratives. Characters like Tonto, played by Jay Silverheels in The Lone Ranger , show the subservient sidekick trope, while other films present Native people as violent obstacles to white settlers. These reductive stereotypes erase the diversity of Native cultures and histories. Many non-Native actors have portrayed Indigenous characters, a practice known as "redface." An example is Burt Lancaster in Apache  (1954), where he played the Apache warrior Massai despite having no Native ancestry. Similarly, white actors like Charles Bronson and Anthony Quinn were frequently cast in Native roles, further marginalizing Indigenous actors. The documentary also highlights how Native Americans were rarely given speaking roles, and when they did speak, their dialogue was often simplified or broken English. Films like Stagecoach  (1939) and The Searchers  (1956) showcased Native characters as either silent or speaking only in grunts and fragmented phrases, reinforcing a dehumanizing portrayal. The documentary also discusses the "renaissance" of Native cinema, which represents a turning point in the industry where Indigenous filmmakers and actors reclaimed their stories. This movement focuses on authentic storytelling from Native perspectives rather than narratives shaped by outsiders. Films such as Smoke Signals  (1998), directed by Chris Eyre and based on Sherman Alexie's work, mark a significant shift in Native representation. The film, featuring Adam Beach and Evan Adams, was the first feature-length film written, directed, and acted entirely by Native Americans, breaking new ground for indigenous storytelling. In the end, Reel Injun  shows how Hollywood has often misrepresented Native Americans but also highlights the changes happening in Native cinema. Through interviews, history, and personal stories, the documentary explores the struggles and progress of Indigenous representation in film. More Native filmmakers and actors are now telling their own stories in a way that feels real and meaningful. Poster from IMDB